Mother tried to open a Discover card in my name.. what are the repercussions?

[Quzy]

This may not be the place for this, but I'm really not sure where else to put this.

Discover just called me and told me someone had tried to open a card in my name, with my mother's email address and city she lives in. The lady told me they are considering it fraud, but I told them I do NOT want them to press any charges against my mother and I will be handling it personally. My mother is very old, and has been having some severe mental problems since my father passed. I understand that this is no excuse for that behavior, but it may have been a lapse of judgement. The LAST thing I want is police knocking down her door.. I tried calling the same lady back and left a message for her to get back to me on this. 

Question is.. am I too late? Are they going to go after my mother? I've been trying to call her, but no reply on her part. She could easily just be spooked, and I live 1000 miles away from her. I've never dealt with this before, and I do hope someone can shed some light on this for me so I can calm down that police won't be knocking on my door, or her door scaring her to the death. I have visions of them handcuffing her 90 year old hands together and it's upsetting me to no end. 

[Skye12329]

It will be fine. Generally when a lender calls and thinks its fraud they just don't open the account up. It's nice that they called and reached out to you though. However it's also nice that it was only your mother and not ID theft.

Nothing will happen to your mother. They are just looking out for you and saying 'hey someone did XYZ and we are not opening up the account due to possible fraud'

[Quzy]

Thank you so much. I did just speak with her, it's been such a hard few years now, I think I gave myself a slight panic attack and ran here for help when I didn't get an answer from anyone. 

[gibeon]

Email/call the Executive Office and tell them what happened. Also tell them that your mother is 90 and has mild dimentia/Alzheimer's/etc.

Tell them you to make sure they don't press charges as you don't want them to, and that you are freezing your reports. Ask them if they can help you get in touch with the fraud dept. to make sure everything will be OK.

Tell them your dreading a "bad news day" where you find out from one of her neighbors that they saw your 90yo mom arrested in the paper because of something to do with Discover (they don't want the bad press either).

Then freeze your reports.

Also, since it was caught before anything could happen, I very much think they won't do anything, as they never even bother going after the folks who actually do make fraudulent charges...

[Anonymous]

I understand your concern but your mom isn't going to be arrested.  The police won't do anything to your mom or even get involved.

[CreditCuriosity]

Agree nothing will happen...  She will be fine Disover and the police both have more important things to do

[taxi818]

She was just trying to make sure you got the Double Cash back. Even if Discover called and had that info. I would have said yes of course my mom can open any account for me.

[CYBERSAM]

Hate to sound negative here, but how can you be sure that she only tried to open CC with Discover? I would try to find out from Discover how she applied in the first place! Also are you sure she was the one who did it?
Not trying to spook you but try to monitor you CR for any other activities!

[Closingracer99]

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@CYBERSAM wrote:

Hate to sound negative here, but how can you be sure that she only tried to open CC with Discover? I would try to find out from Discover how she applied in the first place! Also are you sure she was the one who did it?
Not trying to spook you but try to monitor you CR for any other activities!

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Yeah I would ask if they can tell you the IP address and find out her IP address as well

[Anonymous]

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@Closingracer99 wrote:

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@CYBERSAM wrote:

Hate to sound negative here, but how can you be sure that she only tried to open CC with Discover? I would try to find out from Discover how she applied in the first place! Also are you sure she was the one who did it?
Not trying to spook you but try to monitor you CR for any other activities!

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Yeah I would ask if they can tell you the IP address and find out her IP address as well

What if his mom used a proxy or vpn???